bob_the_d

living in midtown west, JFK is always a royal PITA going crosstown and being stuck on the van wyck, versus 20 minutes to EWR (i live two blocks from the lincoln tunnel).

there's no blanket statement that covers everyone imo.

sfozrhfco

Except for die hard UA fans, which premium travelers from SFO/LAX are going to connect in EWR rather than connect in FRA or some other European hub? Most people in SFO/LAX would rather fly directly into Europe--especially in the winter--but really most any windy/rainy/cloudy day. Who wants to take a chance at getting trapped in EWR? Perhaps they can attract kayakers that are just looking for the cheapest flights but I don't see them attracting HVFs.

tealeaf99

I thought news like this is only ever released on Fridays.

ctownflyer

Wasn't too long ago that CO had service from CLE and IAH to JFK.

belynch

And many of them fly into LAX and SFO, the other end of this equation. :-:

As a NYC area based flier for the last decade I abhorred getting to/from JFK. Good riddance from UA's network.

CO FF

This is a horrible move for large groups of travelers:
-- Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn, Westchester & Connecticut residents
-- Upper East Side residents
-- Anyone heading to any of those places
-- People needing taxis to/from the airport (EWR is 2x the cost, and less predictable (and with fewer options) than JFK, even as bad as the Van Wyck is at all times [other than between 12:00am and 11:59pm])
-- People with a choice of airlines.

B6 will be a far better option LAX-JFK, now that alliance value isn't a factor.

I will be at 93k EQM by July 3 (currently at 84k), and have to book a TATL C r/t for August that could put me over the top for 1K...now I need to decide whether to status match to DL Plt and use the flight for that instead. Ugh.

goodeats21

Good thing the EWR clubs are not already crowded, because there are now going to be a lot of new BusinessFirst passengers with access.


And the OTG "upgrades" at EWR are a joke...otherwise you wouldn't have Global Services passengers scheming for ways to escape the OTG terminal.

Going to be interesting to see how United deals with all the schedule changes. I have some 'interesting' itinerarys booked that allowed me to get to JFK.

eponymous_coward

Not to mention the fact that you could just skip NYC and fly straight to LAX or SFO on a lot of those airlines.

I mean, really, how many CA pax are flying PEK-JFK-LAX/SFO instead of PEK-LAX/SFO? How many SQ pax are flying SIN-FRA-JFK-LAX/SFO instead of SIN-NRT/HKG/ICN-LAX/SFO? How many AV pax are flying from South America into JFK to connect to LAX/SFO?

I have a very hard time believing that there's a ton of *A connecting traffic at JFK that UA is going to miss very badly.

PTahCha

Yup, along with elite instant upgrade fares, not to mention co-pay with mileage upgrades.

Correction - JFK T7 has a dedicated Precheck lane for a while.

entropy

Yes, it is, now there are competitors with (much) better products. United has eviscerated MP as competitive tool, where they used to offer promos to keep travelers loyal, they seem to have forgotten how useful it was in keeping travelers(even business travelers) on UA metal.

In the past they would've offered a 1-2-3-4-5 roundtrip get X miles, a SWU or CR1s.. these days, gornicht. Keep them off the other airlines before they even get on but today, UA has lost the connection and trust to their flyers.. and boom, they go off and find the better experience with B6/VX/DL/AA and they never return.

As for P.S. at EWR... give it time, it'll be gone too. They're going to run their spreadsheets, and see that the yield just isn't there to offer the dedicated product, and will slough off the PS 752s, and keep the few CO 752s rotating through the system as they used to. They're going to look, and say ... well, we can run a 752PS with 114 Y seats and 28 J seats, or a 739ER with 45 more Y seats, and 20 F seats we mostly sold anyways, so those 4 J seats aren't worth the 45 Y seats AND the 739 has a lower op cost than the 752.. goodbye PS.

gengar

And the original post in question discussed options for *A connections. :-:

REPUBLIC757

CO didn't do that at all. Even in 2009 EWR-LAX/SFO was mostly on 738.

LASUA1K

The urban flyer talk myth about the SAG contract and why UA went away with F on that route. They went away with F, because sCO leadership no longer wanted F. Let's not blame the contract. And in all honestly, most of those "contract" members were flying AA anyways. UA was making money before the merger on this route. UA had no reason to drop F, but they did, why? Because they didn't think it was enough of a "difference".

UA will NOT be able to sustain paid BF on LAX,SFO-EWR. They just won't. You have people flying that route weekly, they will choose another airline, they will not fly into EWR. They just won't. UA will be filling those seats up with cheap upgrade fares for non elite.

The paid traffic will continue to fly into JFK, the budget people will fly Y into any airport that is cheaper.

This route made money, if in fact they no longer made money on this route, which they are claiming, then shouldn't that reflect bad on current management?

bob_the_d

my uber black to JFK costs $105, my uber black to EWR costs $102.

i understand that people in queens and brooklyn and the east end of manhattan lose out, but people on the west of manhattan and jersey gain from this.

personally i'm pretty ambivalent on the issues, and even though i hated going to JFK it wasn't a big enough deal for me not to book away from it. i just sleep on my cab ride. i guess my only point is nothing is clear cut, it's never "this is all bad for NYC" or "this is all good for NYC," things operate in shades of grey. good for some, bad for others.

meFIRST

My prediction :

With no one to compete with UA will bring service standards even lower.
The first to go will be the complimenarty club access for ps Business Class passengers.